Eight is great

 this kid lucked out this year as his birthday fell on a friday.

which we all know means weekend-long birthday!

woot woot!

his one request was to go to "Bullwinkles."

so we let him invite two friends to go with him on his actual birthday.

yeeeah, i know.

spence had a friend show up too!

 this place is a mini version of heaven for these boys.

 i would rather gouge my eyes out with a red hot poker

 with his baptism on saturday, we did a mini photo shoot beforehand...

aaaand the big day!

the theme was "come unto christ"...

if you can have a baptism theme, that is.

some family that came up for the special day...

then we fed them because baptisms make you hungry.

i don't know if flowers are too girly for a boy baptism,

but i don't care. i do what i want.

they were white.

after all the food prep, i realized i could never be a caterer...

that, and i had no steam left to make a cake.

enter costco.

he requested chocolate, and this is what they had.

(note to self: never get a costco cake again unless feeding 500 people.)

those balloon blobs of frosting were seriously as big as his head.

sugar comas are awesome.

a Thompson/Godard tradition is to gift the baptized child an embossed set of scriptures.

he was so thrilled to get these.

(he has been using my old seminary ones for over a year)

sunday, he impressed me by putting them to use with grandpa.

he was asking all kinds of questions about them and the stories inside.

such a special memory.

thanks for trekking out here for the baptism grandma and grandpa!

and thanks to all the family and friends that came

to be a part of this special memory for this eight year-old!

it was such a magical day!

 

 oh, and here is the video i put together and we shared at the baptism!
Come Unto Christ!

Our Little Drunkard

This is about a month after the fact,

but Harrison decided he was too cool for crawling!

Here he is showing off his drunken moves...

so bittersweet!

just because...

As per our yearly tradition, we made the grandparents a video.

It roughly comprises all the comings and goings of the previous year

set to some pretty awesome tunage (in my humble opinion).

I don't really know why I am posting this on here....

it's not particularly amazing or anything and pretty personal.

Maybe it's because I am too lazy to keep finding it

 buried in our video files every time the boys want to view it?

But either way, here it is for my your viewing pleasure...
 if you dare...

Autumn Snapshots

Lately...

while raking in the backyard, 

we found dinsosaur-size Maple leaves twice as big as your head...

 witnessed some baby daddy wrestling...

(he is surprisingly good for someone so small)

 reading about some other "wild things"...

 getting into the holiday spirit a little early for fhe this week

(such a cute movie)...

And Nate creating a help sheet to teach Spence how to sing "My Favorite Things" from Sound of Music (which he is performing next week in a school concert).

Just love that kid.

Are you singing that song in your head now?

And guess what little 7 month-er is crawling now?!

Yeppers!  Harrison is all over the place. Here is the proof...

(okay, maybe it looks more like "the worm.")
Time to commence the baby proofing....OY.

Time.

It is passing too quickly. 

Time, that is.

I am reminded every time I pass by a mirror and wonder...

who is that wrinkly lady staring back at me,
with the muffin top, and soft pliable arm fat?

Oh. right. It's me.

But seriously, this week with Nate starting another year of school,

it really hit me how fast this thing called life is going.

To be honest, I felt a bit jipped on my time with him since he started school so young in England,

but it is what it is, because Delorean time machines are not real (yet)
so I can't rewind.

All I can do is try to enjoy the present.

To quote the great Mr. Bueller...(oh yes I am)

"Life moves pretty fast.  

If you don't stop and look around once and a while,

you could miss it."

Break my heart, right?

Just look at those little dimples.

And this little man...
just look at the difference from when we first moved to England, and now!

And don't get me started on this little nugget.

5 months today!

5!!!

(more on him later)
Anywho, in honor of me being super sentimental and sappy this week,

I went ahead and produced some future blackmail gold...

in the form of kid interviews.
(just go to the bottom to pause the music first)

sorry. let's try that again without the crazy camera-eating baby, shall we?

Updates

So....

little man finally had his second cardiologist appointment.

Here he is, peacefully waiting for his turn to be seen.

And here he is waiting topless for an Echocardiogram...

and making a snack of my hand.

He now measures 26 inches, and weighs in at 17lbs!

(he looks so umm 'healthy" is what we usually hear...ahem)

 (sorry for the blurry camera phone pictures...I am a victim of convenience)

Harrison was so much more wiggly this time around.

They decided to do another echo at this appointment since his next check-up will be around 8 months...

which means even more mobility = harder time sitting still for tests. 

Finally, Dr. Kaper gave me the results.

She said there had been no significant change from his last check-up.

His numbers went from a 25 to a 26.

I admit when I first heard her say "no change" my heart sank.

But she explained it like this...

Harrison will always have the stenosis, 

but as long as the valve continues to grow with his body,

they hope to avoid any invasive surgical procedures in the future.

So basically, no change is a good thing.

There was also no muscle increase in the right ventricle 

(which would indicate stress on the heart from having to work harder

 to get blood to pass through the stenosed valve).

We are not out of the woods yet though...

we will be back again in 4 months to see how his heart does
with his next growth spurt.

I just have to say, I am so grateful for priesthood blessings.

And so grateful to have a worthy priesthood holder in my home.

I know Harrison's heart was strengthened because of it.

Be. grateful. for. your. health.

It is so easy to take for granted until you don't have it any more.

Every day is a gift.

 What a blessing this sweet little boy has been in our home.

It has only been about 4 months, but his sweet spirit has been such a calming 

and happy influence in our family already.

We love him to the moon.

You may notice H man is now sporting the oh so manly 

{bubble beard}.

It's mantastic, no?.

This has resulted due to the fact that Harrison likes to pretend he is
a motor boat.

Raspberries are his best trick.

See for yourself here...
(go to bottom to pause music first)

Now go create a bubble beard of your own!
You know you want to...

4 months and a baby mullet

So the little nugget will be 4 months officially in a little over a week, 

but we will be attending a reunion during that momentus occasion, 

so I am posting this now...

Yay!

Besides, I know you just can't wait for me to post again on this cutie man!

You can?!

Ummm...that's awkward.

(p.s.- you have a heart of stone)

Here it is anyway.

come on!  just look at him...

i dare you not to fake finger pinch those wittle cheeks!

he is talking and giggling more and more every day....here's the proof:

(go to the bottom to turn off the sound on the music to hear the videos)

His sleeping habits have gotten worse of late,

but how can you get mad at this little face?

I'm in trouble.

He has also taken to chomping on anything and everything...

his "tasters choice" = fist.

A a funny little quirk of his that I have discovered is

that he almost always prefers to have his head covered to go to sleep.

His dad did/does the same thing.

Cray-Cray.

And the part you've all been waiting for...

drumroll....

the baby mullet!

Yep, our little man is bringing back the 80's classic with style.

see his "real people hair" growing in on top?

(not to be confused with the darker fake baby hair)...

i think we may have another blondie on our hands!